Huge Drop in Roadside Bombs: How Come?

"The number of roadside bombs found in Iraq [has]declined dramatically," USA Today reports. But no one is exactly sure why. More Iraqi help, more U.S. troops, better technology, better intel, better training, and better targeting of ammunition caches — are all cited as possible answers, in a newspaper story just a few hundred words long.

Since the start of the year through September, coalition forces found 25,208 IEDs (improvised explosive devices), according to the figures, which were confirmed by the Pentagon. In those nine months, IEDs killed 510
coalition troops.

The numbers of IEDs found and the deaths they caused have declined steadily since June. In September, coalition forces found 2,022 IEDs. That’s down 38% from March, this year’s peak…

U.S.
officials say the figures show that efforts to crack the Iraqi insurgency are succeeding. The decline in IEDs is due to "a combination of the right technology and equipment, world-class training, and successfully attacking the networks that build and employ the IEDs,"
says retired Army general Montgomery Meigs, director of the military’s
Joint IED Defeat Organization.

In Iraq last week, U.S.
commanders cited a spike in the number of ammunition caches that U.S.
and coalition forces have found. "The clearing of these caches has helped contribute to the downward trends we are seeing in IED
explosions and indirect fire," Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said.

In the first 10 months of 2007, coalition and Iraqi forces have found
5,364 caches of explosives and ammunition — twice the volume found in all of 2006…

Iraqi security forces found and cleared many of the caches, Smith said. He credited the increasing effectiveness of those forces and the recent surge in U.S. troops as key factors.

"Starting in April, when the majority of the surge forces had arrived in Iraq, the number of caches found spiked considerably. And in the ensuing months, we’ve seen a steady increase,"
Smith said.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of U.S. forces south of the capital, said Sunday that he believes the decrease in rocket and mortar attacks will hold because of what he called a
"groundswell" of support from regular Iraqis. "If we didn’t have so many people coming forward to help, I’d think this is a flash in the pan, but that’s just not the case," Lynch said.